Hades Daughter (70 page)

She raised her arms above her head, her breasts lifting high, and spoke in a ritualised, chanting voice that carried over the watching crowd.

“Behold,” she cried. “The Kingman stands before the Labyrinth. Here, tonight, in this land of magic and mystery and power, he will risk his life to guarantee yours. Here, tonight, in this land of magic and mystery and power, he will lift from this land the evil which has beset it, and best it and trap it, so that you will live your lives long and happy. Here, tonight, we will witness the birth of a new city, a new age, and we will consecrate the talisman which will protect us from all evil and harm for ever more.”

She lowered her arms, and turned to face Brutus.

As she did so, the dancers lowered their torches, holding them down and away from their bodies, and turned their faces away from the labyrinth. They kept moving, but their movements were very slow now, very deliberate, as if they danced the measure of Death itself.

“Behold,” whispered Genvissa in a voice that, while very low, nevertheless travelled to every ear, “the Kingman!”

And Brutus began to dance, moving into the paths of the labyrinth.

He lifted his left hand so that he held the ball of pitch high above his head, and his right he held out before him, his arm slightly curved, as if he held a woman within its bounds.

His body moved sensuously, very slowly, displaying its beauty. With each dance step one of his legs lifted, its foot turned slightly outwards, held, then lowered, moving the dance forward with measured deliberation.

With each dance step, his left hand, high above his head, moved a little, twisting the ball of pitch this way and that, his head moving slowly, deliberately, counterwise below his hand.

Each step took him further into the labyrinth, each step marking a seductive, measured invitation to follow.

Everyone felt his pull, felt the urge to follow him into the labyrinth, but no one moved.

As seductive and compelling as Brutus’ dance was, and as much as all the watchers felt that urge to dance after him, all also realised that this was a dance and an invitation meant for one person only.

Or for one
thing
only.

Genvissa, standing at the mouth to the labyrinth, lowered her head, and stepped to one side.

Brutus moved deeper into the labyrinth, twisting and turning within its coils, the ball of pitch slowly turning this way and that over his head.

A beacon of, and to, darkness.

Loth gasped, the next instant feeling all about him stiffen in shock and horror.

Something had slithered up to the mouth of the labyrinth, coming to rest only a pace away from Genvissa who was carefully keeping her gaze on her feet.

It was a mass of darkness, a writhing malaise of evil and ill-feeling and bad-doing.

Everything, Loth realised, his heart thudding, that had afflicted Llangarlia this past generation.

Across the grey waters of the Narrow Seas, the nascent infant Asterion stirred in his mother’s womb. Protected by its walls, the magic of Brutus’ dance did not affect him, nor did the ball of pitch tempt him.

For the moment he was safe.

Genvissa stood as still as death, giving the writhing mass so close to her no recognition at all.

Brutus, although he must also have seen it, continued with his deliberate, sensual dance through the labyrinth.

The mass of evil quivered uncertainly at the mouth of the labyrinth, then it sent forth a tentative sliver of darkness.

Finding no pain, no concern, the mass slithered to catch up with its leading tentacle, then humped even further into the labyrinth.

Brutus danced on, and, by slow degrees, the corrupt mass humped after him, stopping occasionally as if to sniff out any potential trap, then gathering its energy and following the ball of pitch ever deeper into the labyrinth.

Loth’s mouth had gone completely dry.

This
was to lie buried at the heart of the new city? At the heart of Llangarlia?
This
obscenity?

Loth looked at Brutus, now approaching the heart of the labyrinth. His movements were strained, more restricted, as the coils grew ever tighter as they led him to the centre.

Gods, what would Brutus do when the horror caught up with him at the centre of the labyrinth?

Loth looked back to Genvissa, expecting to see her still standing, face lowered, at one side of the labyrinth’s entrance.

But she had moved. Now she stood just inside the entrance, her face up, her eyes shining, a gentle smile curving her mouth.

Brutus reached the centre of the labyrinth, and stood, as Genvissa had been, his head down.

But he still held the ball of pitch aloft.

The darkness writhed closer and closer, picking up speed as it approached its goal. It was muttering now, a horrid hum of angry whisperings, as if it couldn’t wait to feed.

One more turn, one more slither forward, and it, too, had reached the heart of the labyrinth.

The outer lines of dancers stopped, heads down, torches pointing to the earth, as still as death.

Brutus turned, and faced the evil.

Faced the evil within himself.

Brutus fitted an arrow to the bow, and lifted it to his shoulder. He could hear crashing in the shrubs just to his left, could see the flash of the stag’s antlers above the greenery, could hear the beast’s terrified breath.

Excitement flared in his chest, and he let fly the arrow.

There was a silence, then a shout of horror from beyond the path.

“Our king! Our king! He has been struck!”

And the excitement in Brutus’ chest collapsed into dread, and he knew what he had done.

He darted behind the greenery, fighting his way through, and came to a small glade.

In its centre sat his father Silvius.

He was contorted in agony, both his hands wrapped about the shaft of the arrow that had pierced his eye.

Brutus moaned, and walked over to stand a pace before his father.

Silvius, blood streaming in a thick, rich river down his cheek and neck, gradually became aware of him. He dropped his hands from the shaft of the arrow, and held them out in appeal to Brutus.

“What have you done?” he said, his voice a groan. “What have you done?”

Brutus looked at his father for a long moment. There had been pity on his face, but now it had metamorphosed into something else…speculation, perhaps.

“I am taking my heritage,” he said, and he leaned down and took the arrow in one hand and a handful of his father’s hair in the other.

Steadying himself, and firming his grip on his father’s head, Brutus said, “It is time your kingship bands adorned my limbs.”

“No, no,” said Silvius. “How can you base your reign on the corruption of your own father’s murder? Everything you do, everything you touch from this
time on, will be corrupt. Brutus, I beg you, do not murder me. Take this arrow from my eye, do not thrust it further.”

“I can accept your murder,” Brutus said, and Silvius felt his son’s hand firm on the arrow, the head of the weapon slice infinitesimally further through his flesh.

“I have raised you, and loved you, how can you do this to me?”

“Easily,” and the arrow slid further.

Silvius shrieked in agony. “You would found your city on this? On my murder? On the destruction of everything that has loved you?”

“I feel no guilt,” said Brutus. “Not you, nor anyone else, can use it to hurt or bind me. This act has made me the stronger man, and it has marked me a king.”

The agony was unbearable now, but still Silvius found the courage to scream one last warning. “This is not how the Game should be played. It is not what I taught you. If you found the Game on corruption, then—”

“I was ever sick of your words as a child, Silvius, and I find them even more tiresome now. I shall play the Game as
I
wish.
”

And then, as Silvius shrieked and writhed, Brutus thrust the arrow brutally deep into his father’s brain.

“I shall play the Game as
I
wish,” said Brutus to the evil before him and, lifting the ball of pitch, tossed it forward and high into the air.

The gathered darkness shrieked, and surged upwards as if to catch the ball, but it had gone too high and sailed too far forward, and the mass fell back upon itself, howling in frustration.

The ball of pitch burst into flames, disintegrating mid-air.

Genvissa muttered a spell, weaving the pattern with her hands, and as the flaming pieces of pitch fell to the
labyrinth they marked out the path Brutus must follow to escape.

Brutus stepped around the mass of darkness as it writhed about looking for the ball of pitch.

It did not see him, so horrified was it at losing the pitch.

Slowly, yet with far more eagerness in his movements than before, Brutus began to dance his way out of the labyrinth. He kept his hands clasped before him, and his eyes on Genvissa, who had her own hands held out to him.

He danced the path marked by the burning pitch, and, as he passed, so the pitch fell into ashes, and the path went dark.

Behind him the darkness twisted, and howled, seeking a way out of the labyrinth, always missing the path, confused by the twists and turns of the circuits of the labyrinth. It hunched about and about in the central chamber of the labyrinth, becoming ever more frantic, its cries ever more desperate.

“He’s trapped it,” Coel said in an undertone. “He’s trapped evil at the heart of the labyrinth.”

“And that is good?” muttered Loth. “How can it be good to found a city on a bed of evil?”

Brutus was now very close to the outer entrance of the labyrinth. The dancers around the outer wall of the labyrinth had now lifted their torches again, and were singing joyously, and Genvissa stood, her arms outstretched, her brilliant eyes locked into Brutus’, willing him ever forward away from the trapped evil.

Finally he stepped forth, and a great shout went up as, in the centre of the labyrinth, the mass of darkness fell to the ground and, in the blink of an eye, vanished.

As Brutus stepped forth, so Genvissa stepped to meet him, and they fell into each other’s arms, Brutus picking her up and spinning her joyously about.

Then, suddenly, extraordinarily, they disappeared, and Og’s Hill was left bathed in light and joy and the celebrations of the thousands about it.

Asterion was growing with every beat of his mother’s heart, and his body mass was large enough by this stage that when he twisted and kicked she would put her hands on her belly, and pale.

He twisted and kicked now, partaking in the celebrations atop Og’s Hill. The Game had begun.

Once Asterion would have been enraged by this knowledge, for the Game’s completion would mean his re-imprisonment within its black heart, unable to find his way out into freedom.

Now? Now he was overjoyed. He was certain that he could seize control of the Game—rather than it seize him—and use it for his own ends. Not just yet, but soon…soon enough.

He knew also that Brutus and Genvissa were together now, indulging their success in the pleasures of the flesh. They thought they had begun a triumph; instead they had embarked upon an agony so vast it would take them aeons to comprehend it.

Many years and many tears, Mag had said to Cornelia. Many years indeed. And more tears than anyone could possibly imagine.

Best enjoy your celebration while you may, the Minotaur thought, and wriggled some more for the sheer joy in bringing his mother discomfort.

T
he cathedral stood open, waiting, and Jack Skelton entered through the west doors. He walked along the empty nave until he stood under the massive dome, its heights lost in shadows, staring at the marble flooring, remembering that terrible night long ago when vision had become reality.

Although he could not visibly see it, he could feel the word “Resurgam” burning up through the marble.

There was a sound of footsteps behind him, and the soft scrape of crutches, but Skelton did not move.

“You’re back, then.”

“Aye.” Skelton finally turned about, looking at the man leaning on crutches before him. He wore dark vestments, the collar of a cleric, and the thin, lined face of a man who lived with constant pain.

“I am scarcely prettier than you remember,” the man said, then held out his hand, “but at least this time I have no horns to my head. I am Walter Herne, an apt enough name, don’t you think?”

Skelton shook Herne’s hand, introducing himself. “I have seen Genvissa, and Asterion. But not Cornelia. Do you know where she is?”

“You think that Cornelia would make any haste to meet you? Never.”

“We are Gathered, Herne. Asterion has called us all back for his final play. She must be about, surely. She has to be.”

“Is that desperation I hear in your voice, Skelton?” Herne said.

Jack Skelton narrowed his eyes, studying Herne, thinking. “Is Coel here?” he asked suddenly.

“If he is,” Herne said, “do you think Cornelia will be with him?”

Skelton’s face sagged, and for a moment Herne thought the man might actually weep.

“I am afraid that Asterion has her,” Skelton said. “After what happened last time we were Gathered…I am afraid…” He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, and when his hand dropped away Herne saw that Skelton’s eyes were indeed wet. “By God, Herne, I would prefer it that she were with Coel than still trapped by that monster.”

“You have changed,” Herne said. “It is a shame you could not have spoken those words three thousand years ago: ‘It is better she be with Coel than still trapped with that monster’.”